Texas TEKS 6.21.E

Social Studies6th GradeSocial studies skills

The Standard

use effective written communication skills, including proper citations to avoid plagiarism

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Social Studies

Teacher's field guide

What Students Need to Do: Students explain source ideas in their own words and organize them into clear social studies writing. They use quotation marks for exact words and identify each source they use.
What Mastery Looks Like: A student can write a paragraph that combines facts from two sources while clearly showing where each fact came from. They paraphrase without copying sentence structure and cite quotations and borrowed ideas.
Common Misconceptions: Students may think changing a few words makes copied text their own, or that only direct quotations need citations. They may include a source list but fail to connect specific claims to sources.
How to Assess It: Give students a short source passage. Ask them to write one paraphrase and one direct quotation, with a citation for each.

Lesson moves

Give pairs source cards to sort sample sentences into quotation, paraphrase, or plagiarism, then have them repair each plagiarism example.
Ask, "When does borrowing become plagiarism?" Students write a claim, cite one example, and discuss their reasoning with a partner.
Play Citation Relay: teams add quotation marks and source details to uncited statements, earning a point for each accurate repair.
Have students examine a news article's links and credits, then trace two claims back to the original sources.

Free download

A ready-to-print activity worksheet aligned to 6.21.E, with an answer key for the teacher on its own page. No account needed.

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